- Title: Perception – Neuropositive
- tv.com: link
Kate (Rachael Leigh Cook) enlists the help of Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) after hearing the hazy confession of a terminal cancer patient (Matthew Holmes) who admits to a 20 year-old hit-and-run that left a young girl dead on the side of the road but can’t tell her any more about where the crime took place. All he knows is the accident was connected to a series of bank robberies he made during that time period. Kate finds the likely victim, but after the man’s brain tumor goes into remission he suddenly changes his story and decides he hallucinated the entire thing.
The case takes another turn when the cancer patient with a new lease on life turns up dead. Kate questions the heavily in-debt wife (Rebecca McFarland), the robber’s old partner (Holly Gagnier), and his unorthodox psychologist (Timothy Busfield) all of whom had motives to want the man dead. Daniel begins being haunted by his dead mother (JoBeth Williams) which points Daniel and Kate in the direction of the mother (Wendy Phillips) of the hit-and-run victim in whose kitchen they find a kitchen knife covered with the cancer victim’s blood but who, despite the evidence to the contrary, isn’t their killer.
Eventually Daniel discovers that his mother isn’t visiting to help him solve the case but to help him come to terms with her death from cancer and the dozens of unorthodox medical treatments he shoved he into in the months leading up to her death. Although his hallucination does give him a clue to finding the real killer, it’s a nice change of pace to see Daniel’s mind working to fix his own problems rather than just solve a murder. Sadly for Kate, she finds her murder in the one place she didn’t want to – the handsome young doctor (Reid Scott) who was the most promising new boyfriend material the FBI agent had met in some time.
